


Drops of Sun

by nothingeverlost



Series: Synnove Rumpelstiltskin [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Childhood, Drabbles, Gen, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:17:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingeverlost/pseuds/nothingeverlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Synnove,” he whispers.  Gift of the Sun.  Her mother had brought him the sun, and taken the light with her when she left.  Now he has it back and he’s never letting go.  With gentle hands, Rumpelstiltskin picks up his daughter and cradles her against his heart.</p><p>A collection of short stories that take place in a 'verse started by my 'A Shattered Fragment of Sun' in which Belle was pregnant when she left, and a gloating Queen brought the babe to Rumpelstiltskin.  Not in chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She’s six when she finds the room. There’s over a hundred rooms in the castle and he’s always so careful to lock this one when he leaves, but she’s clever, his girl. She’s her father’s daughter, with her own special impishness.

She’s old enough now that he doesn’t have to have her constantly in his sight (but if he had it his way she’d always be just where he could see her.) An hour’s as long as he can take, though. He doesn’t think about where in the castle she is when he seeks her out and appears at her side with a flick of his wrist that always amuses her. He’s thrown for a moment, not understanding why he’s standing on the blue carpet, next to the bed where no one has slept for seven years (but he’s laid there, so many times, staring at the ceiling and trying to imagine someone breathing next to him.)

His attention is pulled from his thoughts by tiny hands clapping and a giggle that’s more lyrical than any music to his ears. “We’s gonna go to a ball, papa. See?”

Rumpelstiltskin turns and looks at his daughter, and forgets how to breathe. She’s wearing the dress. The gold one, the one Belle first wore when she came to the Dark Castle. The one she wore once when they danced together in the great hall after a (mostly unburnt) candlelit dinner. She’s not even as tall as his waist yet, the dress puddling on the floor and barely held up by wee little arms. It should make him laugh, but the man feared by seven kingdoms is having a hard time not crying. Synnove’s hair is the same chestnut brown as her mother, her eyes just as vivid a blue even if the shade is a little different.

“Is I boot-i-ful? I made my hair all untangly.” He looks, and finds a silver brush on the floor not far from where his daughter stands, the pink rose on the back catching the light in the room and shimmering. It had been a gift, one of the few he’d brought home from his deals. Belle had kissed him, then, back when kisses weren’t something to be feared. Before she understood that she loved him, and he’d ruined everything.

“You’re the most beautiful girl ever, sunshine.” He bends to pick her up, gently disentangling her from the dress that slips away easily.

“But papa that was my pretty pretty dress, like a real princess.”

“We’ll get you a dress that fits, dearie, in any color you like.” Except gold. He can’t bear to dress her in gold. “You can’t dance at a ball if you’re tripping over your hem.”

“When can I go to the really real balls? Like Snow White and Princess ‘Punzel and everything?” The prospect of a new gown seems to soothe the loss of the other.

“When you’re older. Balls are for stodgy old people. Little girls need adventures like flying in Neverland or building forts in trees.” She is almost getting too old to carry, but it’s a comfort he will not give up easily so he settles her on his hip as he waves a hand to extinguish the light in the room. He could have picked up the dress and brush just as easily, but he doesn’t. Later he will come back, and hang a dress and caress the bristles of a brush. Later he will speak to an empty room of a daughter who had never seen her mother wear a dress of gold, and once more ask forgiveness of a mother that had never held her daughter.

“Let’s go have lunch, my dearest.” He pauses at the door only long enough to lock it.

“Then we can have an event-sure?” She looks at her papa with gleaming blue eyes, and even if he wanted to he wouldn’t be able to say no.

“Then we’ll have a very big adventure.”


	2. First Day of School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie Gold doesn't like school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a request for Synnove in Storybrooke, which wasn't something I was intending to do but was fun to play with.

When the bell in the shop sounded at half past ten, Gold was in the back working on restoring the spine of a book. It wasn’t something he could stop right away, considering that he’d already applied half the glue, so it was a minute before he could make his way to the front. At first glance the shop was empty, which was odd since the bell had not chimed a second time. Perhaps one of the more frightened residents of the town had thought better of coming in. 

He made a circle of the shop anyway, and found her sitting on an ottoman in the front window, making a tower out of limoges boxes. ”Ellie, my love, I think I must be imagining things. I know I dropped you off at school two hours ago.”

“I walked back,” she said with a shrug, her head bent down as she concentrated on stacking a pale blue porcelain box onto the slightly curved one below it. She had the infinite patience of her mother most of the time.

“I remember there being a rule about walking in town on your own.” And not leaving school, but he realized that he’d never actually said that. it had been assumed on his part; apparently not on hers.

“I seen…”

"Saw,” he corrected automatically.

“I _saw_ Mr. Leroy going past, and asked him to walk with me. I didn’t break the rules, papa.” She gave him another shrug; that was a habit he was going to have to work on breaking. He was also going to have to have a talk with the dwarf turned security guard about his ‘helpful’ behavior.

“It was good of you to remember that rule, pet, but it was wrong to leave school. You have to stay there until I come and pick you up.” He nudged her foot aside to give himself room to sit beside her. The sun coming through the window drew gold highlights out of her brunette hair. He touched a curl, and for the millions time wondered if it was anything like Belle’s hair as a child.

“I was bored. Some of the other kids can’t even read good, papa. We practiced writing letters and sounding out words like cat and box.” When her tower started to falter his daughter took off the top two boxes. She’d yet to have one break, or even chip. ”Can’t I just stay here and learn wit you, like always?”

“You’re clever, my little sunshine, but there are other reasons to go to school.” He might be a pariah, but he’d be damned if his daughter suffered for lack of companionship. Still, it might be worth seeing about having her moved a grade higher. He hadn’t bothered with kindergarden last year because she was so smart; he seemed to be paying for that now.

“But I like the shop better than school.” Her attention moved to an open box of sterling silver teaspoons, using the cloth tucked into an inner pocket to start polishing one of the pieces. ”I can help.”

“You’re a big help, dearest one, and you can help me for the rest of the morning, but after lunch it’s back to school for you, and no leaving again without my permission. Understand?”

“Yes, papa. But I don’t have to be happy about it, okay?”

“We’ll find a way to make it work, love. I think you’ll like it once you make some friends.”

“Don’t need ‘em. You’re my bestest friend.” She brushed a kiss to her papa’s cheek. Though he worried, intellectually, about his daughter not having anyone her own age his heart swelled knowing that he was the most important person in her life. He would do anything for his daughter, his one little piece of Belle. Anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an FYI: Synnove means ‘gift of the sun.’ Like everyone in Storybrooke her name changed. Ellie, short for Eleanor, means ‘ray of sun.’


	3. The Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Queen returned six months later.

She waited almost six months, before returning to the Dark Castle. He let her in, but not before taking Synnove to her nursery and casting a protective spell over her cradle. Not even the Queen’s magic was strong enough to break it.

“Still wearing black, Rumpel? How very sweet.” There was no tea set out this time, so she took a slow walk around the room, making a point of running a finger along the dustier surfaces.

“You have two minutes, Your Majesty. After that you may or may not be leaving with all of your extremities still attached.” He’d let her leave once, without the slow lingering death she was due. He wouldn’t be able to continue to restrain himself.

“So much time alone is bad for you, dear. Your manners are deplorable.” She took a moment to smooth away invisible wrinkles in her skirt; she was, as always, a master of drama. ”I’ve come about the curse you promise me.”

“Curse, dearie?” He hadn’t given it a thought in six months. Everything he had was focused on tending to his daughter and seeing to her safety.

“The Dark Curse. I’m ready for it now, and you’ve been promising it for ages.” Someone else looking at her might think she was calm, but he could see the desperation in her eyes. Snow must be making trouble again.

“You’ve wasted your time. I’m not dealing with you anymore.” He flicked his hand in the direction of the doors, flinging them open. ”You can leave now.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you give me what you promised.” Magic crackled from her fingers. He might have laughed at the idea that she could think to try and frighten him, if he wasn’t battling his own demons, trying to make it just a few more minutes before she was gone.

“If you stay it will be as a statue in my garden, your skin turned to stone but your mind still very much alive, cursed to see and hear but never move or speak. Or you can leave, now, and never return.” In a flash he was standing behind her, a hand on her wrist. The skin on the back of her hand was already turning gray and inelastic.

“Bastard.” She couldn’t teleport from the spot, his magic was too strong. She pulled away, though, and he let her, watching as she swept from the room. ”This isn’t over, Rumpelstiltskin.”

“For your sake you might want to rethink that.” The moment she was gone he locked the door and set up a shield to block her from return. It took only a moment; the very next second he was at the edge of the cradle.

His daughter slept, peaceful and safe.

With a sob he sunk to the floor beside the cradle. His daughter was safe, but the price was almost impossible to fathom. He’d sent away the one person who could have finished what he’d started three hundred years ago, the curse that was a blessing, the way to find his son. If he never finished the Curse he couldn’t get to Bae. If he did finish the Curse Regina would twist everything. She could do anything to his Synnove, separate her from him, or worse turn him into the worst kind of father.

He couldn’t risk it. 

Bae, his precious Bae, was alone in another world. But Bae was fourteen, and strong. Synnove was so fragile. So innocent.

He had to protect her. He had to trust that Bae would protect himself.

“Help me,” he whispered. It was as close to a prayer as he’d come in centuries. There was no god he believed in, though. No higher power watching over them. There was only him, and his daughter. And Belle.

“I’ll protect her, Belle. I swear it. I’ll protect our girl. But if there’s a way... look after my boy. Please.” he didn’t blink away the tears that fell. He just sat, eyes closed, and hoped that somewhere Belle’s spirit listened.


	4. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Papa, why did my mama go away?” She’d never asked, before.

She woke up crying, a nightmare still clinging to her though she remembered nothing but the color black and a glow of red.

“Papa,” she sobbed as she held her arms out to him. He was always there when she needed him, a soft ‘pop’ and a wisp of purple smoke bringing him to her side.

“Softly now, my sunshine. You don’t want to start a flood with those tears, do you?” Strong arms picked her up, carrying her to the rocking chair that sat before the fire. A warm fire glowed in the hearth, though if she were to reach out the flames would not burn her. Her papa warned that fire burned, but he made sure nothing in her room could hurt her.

“Like Alice?” Her papa told her stories every night. Alice was a favorite, but she knew not to say the name when the hat man came to call.

“Shall I tell you a story of her, little one, until you can sleep again?” His shirt was soft against her cheek as she rested her head on his chest. When other people were around he wore jackets that scratched, but when it was just then his clothing was always as soft as her own pillow. Synnove bit her lower lips before shaking her head.

“The princess and the pea, perhaps?” Again Synnove shook her head. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words did not come easily. She did not like to make her papa sad.

“Shall I show you how the mermaids sing, my love?” His hand flexed, and she knew that with the snap of his finger he would have a shell in his hand, like a magical music box. She loved the mermaid’s songs.

“Papa, why did my mama go away?” She’d never asked, before. Papa promised that her mama loved her very much, and that had been enough, but something from the nightmare she couldn’t remember whispered terrible things in her mind. “Did she really love me?”

“She loved you, Synnove, more than a mama ever loved her child.” His arms around her were so tight they almost hurt, but she did not tell him. She just held onto his arm as tightly as she could too.

“But I want her.” She thought of the brush with the roses on it, that she’d snuck out of her mama’s room and hid in her bed. It was hard and scratchy, but she slept with it instead of the doll her papa tucked in with her every night.

“I do too. I’d trade anything I possessed to have her back, except for you.” His voice sounded funny. Not the kind of funny that it did when people came to visit and he giggled and danced around. A different funny that made her tummy hurt.

“Did you have to trade her to have me, papa?” Synnove frowned, the expression on her face one that many would say was strangely like her impish father.

“You were a gift, my precious one, not a bargain. Your mama was taken away by something so strong that not even your papa could fight it, but she gave you to me first. She wanted you safe, love.”

“What if that thing comes for me?” She remembered the dark and the cold of her nightmare.

“You’re safe with me, my sunshine. Your mama knew that I would do anything to keep you safe, just as she knew that you were the only thing to keep me from breaking when she was gone.”

“You’re not brokened.” Synnove twisted until she could reach up and wrap her arms around her papa’s neck. She held on so tight she could feel his heartbeat against her chest, not far from her own.

“Not as long as I have you, my love.” He did not speak again, but he rocked until she fell asleep, and held her until the sun’s rays peeked through the window.


	5. Spying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you like living here, Synnove?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after "Tea Time."

“You’re the Stillyskin man.”

It took him three trips to the castle, but he finally found the little girl out in the garden, pulling her dragon toy in a cart that was also filled with flowers.

“You can call me David.” Snow had wanted to see the child for herself, to make sure that she was really alright, but she was heavy with their own child and he was not going to let Rumpelstiltskin near her, not after what had almost happened to Ella.

“That’s not what papa calls you.” She was so happy, this little girl, and it was strage to him that she could be so content. 

“You can give me a ride in my wagon. Here.” She held out the rope lead to him. In the sun it glittered; Charming took it in hand and realized that there was gold treads running through it.

“Do you like living here, Synnove?” he asked as he watched her get into the wagon. He figured he only had minutes before the master of the castle showed up.

“I never lived nowhere else. This is my home.”

“Is your papa kind to you?” There were stories of his temper, when the Dark One didn’t get his way. No one dared to break a deal with him, knowing what might happen.

“My papa is the bestest papa. He tells me stories and plays games, and sometimes he makes Drake move all by himself. And sometimes we go on ‘ventures, like to Grabah or to visit Mr. Jeffy.” She nodded sagely, her head tilted to one side. He could see just a hint of the her papa in her; he wondered what her mother had been like.

“Does he ever scare you?” he asked. He needed to put Snow’s mind at rest.

“You’re silly. Papa makes the scary things go away. Do you need him to make your scary things go away? I can ask him, ‘cause your my friend and I don’t want you to have scary things.”

“I don’t have any scary things,” he lied. His head full of new information to process and the strange idea of Rumpelstiltskin now even stranger, Charming stopped asking questions and pulled the child around the garden.


	6. Dressing Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt 'Synnove and Rum play dressup.'

“You haffta be the princess, otay papa?” Synnove didn’t give him a choice. She was every inch her mother’s daughter - and her papa’s as well - when she handed him the crown. He obeyed before she thought to insist on a dress as well.

“If I’m the princess, sunshine, who are you?” He knelt on the floor of her playroom, ignoring the potions that he had been working on. Nothing mattered, not when Synnove wanted her papa to play.

“You’re silly, papa. I be the whited knight.” He didn’t remember getting her a wooden sword, but she had one.

“Drake be the scary dragon, otay? He breathes fire and everything.” She set down her most treasured friend, patting him gently before picking up her sword. ”You hatta scream now, papa, like you’re scareded.”


	7. The Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt 'Regina gives Synnove a birthday present, how does Rum react?'

It took all of this self control not to rip the mirror out of his daughter’s hand and fling it against the wall. With his hands curled into tight fists Rumpelstiltskin left his little girl’s room. He wouldn’t let her see that side of him, the ugly part that could destroy in an instant, without remorse or hesitation. He had vowed to protect her from everything.

Even himself.  
It was a full ten minutes before he was able to return. With a wave of his hand he sent Drake dancing on the small table, distracting his little girl enough that the mirror was left alone on the rug. It was easy from there to pick it up and cover the shiny surface with a layer of paint. No one would be using it to spy on him.

"Again, papa!" Synnove demanded when the stuffed crocodile (dragon, Synnove would insist) fell down onto the table.

"Not just now, my love." He scooped her up, setting her onto the table next to the stuffed toy, and knelt before her with the neutered mirror in hand. "I need you to tell me about this."

"It got broked." Synnove reached out the touch the surface of the mirror. Rum yanked it away, despite the fact that it couldn’t hurt her.

"Do you remember why you can’t go up to papa’s tower?" He had wards around the place, to prevent such a thing from happening, but he was extra cautious.

"We haffta be extra extra careful about magic things, ‘cause some of them can make big hurts happen. There’s lots of magic things in the tower." She looked proud of herself for remembering. Rum stroked her hair, and thought of all the times he’d come down from the tower to find her sitting on the bottom stair, looking up. She had her mother’s curiosity.

Five years, and it still felt like a dagger to his chest every time he remembered that Belle would never know their daughter.

"This is a magic thing, sweetheart, but it’s not papa’s. It belongs to a bad lady." An evil bitch who was never getting near his daughter again, but there were things little girls didn’t need to understand.

"But she was nice, papa. She knew it was my birfday an’ everything. She said I was pretty, just like my mama." Synnove’s bit her lower lip in confusion, a gesture that made his heart stop. 

He was going to kill Regina. 

"You are beautiful, dear one. But that lady is a liar. She hurt your mama, a long time ago, and she would hurt you if she could. You must not speak with her again." He was going to have to find out how she had managed to get so close, and fix it. He would do anything to keep Synnove safe. 

"She hurt mama?" In an instant tears glistened in his little girl’s eyes.

"She won’t get another chance." He pulled her close against his chest and held her tightly. He’d lost Belle and Bae. He wouldn’t lose his sunshine. Tonight he would destroy the mirror and strengthen his wards. 

And then he’d pay Regina a call.


End file.
